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	Church and Media: the Story of an Old Misunderstanding By Giacomo Galeazzi Vatican Insider November 11, 2011 http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/news/detail/articolo/mass-media-chiesa-cattolica-catholic-church-iglesia-catolica-9816/ Right from the first interview ever held with a Pope (the interview between Leo XIII and Le Figaro in 1892, on anti-Semitism), there was controversy within the Curia, with criticisms launched against the Francophile Secretary of State Rampolla del Tindaro, who had favoured the interview and had reviewed it before its publication. Nothing new there then. In fact, the focus the Holy See received in the media along with the relative misunderstandings, go back as far as the pontificate of Pius XI. Paul VI then complained about the fact that newspapers often published the Church’s opinions, without actually asking the Church what it thought. Taking “a historical look at the complex and difficult relationship between the Church and the mass media.” This was the objective of today’s meeting entitled “Misunderstandings. The Catholic Church and the media”, set forth by “L’Osservatore Romano”’s director Giovanni Maria Vian, organised by the Vatican in the Synod’s old hall, on the occasion of the newspaper’s 150th anniversary. “Today there is less of a willingness to understand the Church compared to the Second Vatican Council era.” And yet the Church” has been communicating for two thousand years and is an expert in humanity, as Paul VI once told the UN.” Despite this, the current Pope is “a man who is very sensitive to communication, who speaks clearly and makes himself understood by everyone, even non Catholics, uniting faith and reason,” Vian pointed out. Present at the meeting were dozens of prelates from the Curia, political representatives and journalists (Bertone, Ravasi, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, Mamberti, Marini, Veglio, the Italian ambassador in the Curia, Greco, Gotti, Tedeschi, Mantovano, Binetti, Herranz, Rylko, Tighe and the director of Gr RAI (Italy’s public radio and television broadcaster) Preziosi). It was inspired by an article in which Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles, placed emphasis on the controversial question: “Since the secular press belongs to this world and addresses a worldly public, it will never be the ideal means for transmitting the Christian message. Although it relies on other means of social communication, the Church must interact with the press in the best way possible, whilst being aware that tensions and oppositions will persist until the end of human history.” The study day introduced by Professor Vian, began with the presentation of reports by historians Lucetta Scaraffia and Andrea Riccardi, on the impact of the encyclical “Humane Vitae” on public opinion in the ‘70s, and John Paul II’s relationship with public opinion. A relationship which –Riccardi explained - was not always marked by understanding on the part of the media. Following this, there were speeches by Vatican correspondents from newspapers of international renown: Jean-Marie Guenois (“Le Figaro”), Against the German shepherd; Antonio Pelayo (“Antena 3 TV”), Regensburg and the distorted lesson; Paul Badde (“Die Welt”), The Williamson case; John Hooper (“The Guardian”), When the Pope talks about the condom; John L. Allen Jr. (“National Catholic Reporter”), In the face of the abuse scandal: A perfect storm. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, concluded on the contributions. The Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, made a surprise appearance this morning, along with Vatican correspondents and communication experts, but also with many bishops and prelates from the Roman Curia, at the seminar on religious information, promoted by “L’Osservatore Romano”. The meeting dealt with the media’s wrong interpretations of the recent Popes’ magisterial speeches, from the heated criticisms against Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae encyclical, to the extremely violent attacks against Benedict XVI. Professor Lucetta Scaraffia, Professor of contemporary history at the University of La Sapienza in Rome, illustrated the reactions towards the Pope’s condemnation of the contraceptive pill which “marked the end of the “honeymoon” between the Pope and public opinion”, which had started when John XIII declared the Second Vatican Council. Professor Scaraffia recalled the influence the sexual revolution had on criticisms made in the ‘60s against the Humanae Vitae. According to Scaraffia, now that the sexual revolution no longer has the same groundbreaking force it had back then “the moment has come for a more balanced reconciliation with the encyclical.” There was certainly a “misunderstanding, a misconception” between Paul VI and public opinion, “and this first crisis between Popes and the media triggered the creation of a model that was more or less re- presented in all the papacies right up until the current one,” Professor Scaraffia underlined. “What people did not grasp was that Paul VI’s theory on natural methods for responsible parenthood, was an anti-colonialist one, but it was stigmatised as biologism. And the “defeat” of the sexual revolution had to take place before the document, which foresaw said revolution, could be reconsidered in a more balanced way.” According to “L’Osservatore Romano”’s historian and columnist, this misapprehension “did not just involve a misunderstanding, but it was definitely a misunderstanding. A serious mistake, which created a model that was then emulated in all the cases that followed, right up until today.”
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